Osama bin Laden warned that al-Qaeda will kill Americans if the mastermind of the 2001 attacks on the US, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, is executed, in a tape aired on Al-Jazeera on Thursday.
“The White House has declared its wish to execute Sheikh Mohammed and his co-accused. The day the United States takes such a decision, it would be also taking the decision that any of you falling into our hands will be executed,” bin Laden said in the audio message.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, flying with US President Barack Obama to Iowa on Air Force One, did not directly respond to the comments.
But he said: “We see that al-Qaeda has nothing to spread but hate and that’s why the administration will keep up the pressure to destroy the al-Qaeda network.”
Bin Laden said Obama was “still walking in the footsteps” of his predecessor, George W. Bush, by escalating the war in Afghanistan.
He also condemned Obama for “oppressing our prisoners that you are holding, beginning with the mujahid [holy warrior]hero Khaled al-Sheikh Mohammed.”
US politicians, he added, had “oppressed us and still do, especially by backing Israel, which occupies the land of Palestine.”
The US-based IntelCenter monitoring service said the tape “appears to be authentic.”
“Bin Laden’s specific threat serves as a valid indicator of an increased threat of kidnappings targeting Americans in the immediate period and following through the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial in the US,” it warned in a statement.
“Attempts to kidnap Americans would not be limited to core al-Qaeda. The group’s regional arms such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb, which has been aggressively targeting Westerners for kidnapping in North Africa, may follow through on bin Laden’s threat,” it said.
The Kuwaiti-born Sheikh Mohammed is being held in Guantanamo Bay and was subjected to repeated water-boarding, a now banned interrogation technique that simulates drowning, after his 2003 arrest in Pakistan.
He told a military tribunal in 2008 that he did not “want to waste time” and would plead guilty to the terror charges.
The US is just weeks away from a landmark decision on whether to try him and four alleged co-conspirators in a civilian federal court or in a military tribunal.
The Obama administration had announced it would try them in a New York courthouse just steps from where the World Trade Center that collapsed in the 2001 attacks had stood.
But the plans have met a backlash from Republican lawmakers who introduced legislation to require a military trial, challenging Obama months ahead of mid-term elections in November.
Obama made bringing Sheikh Mohammed to a civilian trial a centerpiece of a broader plan to end what he saw as serious abuses of law under Bush and his powerful vice president Dick Cheney.
Bin Laden’s latest statement was his first since he issued two in January, one of them claiming responsibility for the botched Christmas Day bombing of a US airliner and vowing further strikes on American targets.
Bin Laden also referred to US support for Israel in the January message.
“God willing, our attacks against you will continue as long as you maintain your support of Israel,” he said.
“America should not dream of security until we enjoy it as a reality in Palestine,” added the Saudi-born militant who has a US$50 million bounty on his head.
In the other tape released in January, bin Laden blamed major industrial nations for climate change, a statement the US State Department said showed the al-Qaeda chief was struggling to stay relevant.
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